LESSON 93: Rotating Hive Bodies In Spring (www.honeybeesonline.com) 217-427-2678

Hello, we are David & Sheri Burns, beekeepers operating Long Lane Honey Bee Farms. Feel free to contact us at: 217-427-2678. We’re having the time of our life enjoying helping others get started in beekeeping.
In today’s Lesson, I will be explaining the importance of rotating hive bodies in early spring. Before we start today’s lesson, let me invite you to two our our upcoming classes.






LESSON 93: ROTATING HIVE BODIES
It's important for beekeepers to be well prepared to properly manage hives that have survived the winter. In our last lesson we looked into a more detailed look at the Demaree swarm prevention method. Use this acronym to help you remember how to prepare:

Stimulate For Rapid Foraging Force
Prevent Swarms
Rotate Hive Bodies Inspect The Productivity Of The Queen
New Queen
Give 1:1 Sugar Water & Pollen Patties

It is important for the second year beekeeper to understand how the bees gradually move upward in the hive during the winter. During the winter the cluster gradually moves upward into the top hive body eating its way into stored honey above the cluster.

Normally the colony is found in the upper deep hive body during the start of spring, leaving the bottom deep hive body empty of bees and honey. The colony will expand in the upper hive body but will quickly become congested and will not likely move down.
The congestion can cause the colony to swarm. Therefore, by reversing the hive bodies the main nesting area is placed on the bottom, giving the colony room to expand into the upper hive body thus elevating congestion and helping to prevent swarming.
This is referred to by beekeepers as rotating the hive bodies or also as reversing the hive bodies. Many beekeepers become too eager to reverse the hive bodies and make a mistake so huge that it devastates the hive, and the colony usually never fully recovers. So let me give some practical advice on rotating the hive bodies.
First, DO NOT ROTATE TOO EARLY. Many beekeepers rotate the boxes too early in the season when the nights are still below freezing.

While a large hive may not be too effected, a smaller hive can suffer from being moved to the bottom. Why? When they were in the top of the hive, they enjoyed living in the pocket of heat that became trapped in the upper part of the hive. This provided assistance in heating the newly reared brood. If the hive bodies are rotated and the temperature drops drastically from a surprise spring cold snap, the colony is now on the
bottom and may have difficulty keeping the brood warm. In Illinois I make it a firm practice never to make splits or rotate hive bodies until after May 1. I simply want warmer nights.
Secondly, many beekeepers make the mistake of not fully inspecting and locating the nesting area. Before reversing the hive bodies it is essential that the hive be inspected. If any of the capped or uncapped brood dips down into the lower hive body, DO NOT REVERSE. If the brood/nesting area was in the upper half of the lower deep, and into the lower half of the upped deep then rotating will damage and break up the brood area and the hive will likely not recover throughout the summer.
So before rotating, make sure there is no brood in the lower hive body. It must be empty of brood, capped or uncapped. If there are some bees in the lower hive, but no brood, it is okay to rotate.

Rotating Hive Bodies & Cleaning Out Bees That Died In Winter

Let me summarize rotating hive bodies:
* Be sure the nights are warm enough not to chill the brood.
* Check and make certain all capped and uncapped brood is found in the upper hive body.
* To rotate, simply reverse the locations of the hive bodies. Place the bottom one on top and the tope one on the bottom.
...in our next article Inspecting The Productivity Of The Queen


Thanks for joining us today and here is our contact information:
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
14556 N. 1020. E. Rd
Fairmount, IL 61841
(217) 427-2678
http://www.honeybeesonline.com/
EMAIL: david@honeybeesonline.com

Lesson 92: Swarm Prevention, Demaree Method (www.honeybeesonline.com) 217-427-2678

We are David and Sheri Burns from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms. Our main website is: www.honeybeesonline.com

Hi we are David and Sheri Burns at honeybeesonline.com  Please visit our Main Website at: http://www.honeybeesonline.com

 

ADVANCE BEEKEEPING COURSE JUNE 11, 2014 9am-3pm Central Illinois!!

Have you considered the importance of taking our one day Advance Beekeeping Course?  I'll be joined by my good friend and fellow certified master beekeeper Jon Zawislak. Jon and I have written a book on queen rearing and we recently authored a two part articled published in the American Bee Journal on the difference between Northern and Southern bees. Jon and I will be teaching our Advance Beekeeping course June 11, 2014 here in Fairmount, Illinois and we have around 6 seats available. You don't want to miss this opportunity to be around me and Jon and learn about bees for a whole day. Click here for more information.

Check out our entire list of beekeeping classes we offer by clicking here.

Welcome to Long Lane Honey Bee Farms Online Lessons! Visit our MAIN WEBSITE AT: http://www.honeybeesonline.com We have a complete line of hives that we build right here in Illinois. We offer classes, sell queens and much more. Give us a call at: 217-427-2678. Our hours are: M-Th 10am-4pm, Fri 10-Noon Central Time.
Thanks for joining us today as we continue to look at important preparations for hives that survive the winter. We call these hives overwintered colonies. Today we’ll specifically look at an effective swarm prevention method known as the Demaree method.
But first, let me thank you for your interest in honey bees. Thank you for realizing how important honey bees are to our food supply. 1 out of 3 bites of food is the result of honey bee pollination. Do your part by keeping bees.

LESSON 92: SWARM PREVENTION
It's important for beekeepers to be well prepared to properly manage hives that have survived the winter. In our last lesson we looked at how to stimulate the colony to produce a large population of foraging bees prior to the first strong nectar flow. In this lesson we look into the very challenging task of swarm prevention. I'm using an acronym to make it easier to remember 6 important management practices to implement in the SPRING and today we'll look at number 2, Prevent Swarms.
Stimulate For Rapid Foraging Force

Prevent Swarms
Rotate Hive Bodies

Inspect The Productivity Of The Queen

New Queen

Give 1:1 Sugar Water & Pollen Patties
In this lesson, we'll look at a few techniques to prevent swarming. Swarming is probably the greatest cause of low honey production.

First, I'll give some important bullet points on swarming, then I'll give three swarm prevention methods. Keep in mind that swarming is not completely understood and no matter what methods are used colonies may still swarm. There is no 100% sure method that works every time.
* 60 percent of the colony swarms with the older queen.
* Clipping a queen's wing does not prevent swarming, because they will wait and swarm with the new, virgin queen.
* The primary cause of swarming is congestion in the brood area of the hive.
* The swarm is made up largely of young bees at the optimal age for producing wax since the swarm must quickly build new comb.
* A large hive (one that has not swarmed) has more foraging bees than bees caring for brood even though the large hive has more brood. In other words, once a hive swarms it will greatly reduce its ability to produce surplus honey.

* A healthy colony will swarm in order to reproduce another colony.
* Colonies are most likely to swarm during spring and early summer during the start of a nectar flow.
* Colonies with queens that are more than 1 year old are more likely to swarm.
* Keeping a young queen in the hive is a very effective swarm control method.
* A colony makes queens in preparation to swarming and as soon as the newly created queen cells are capped, they can swarm at any time.
* Beekeepers who capture swarms often have queen issues afterward because the swarm is accompanied by the old queen that may soon die or not lay well, and be unsuccessfully replaced.
* The main swarm is headed by the old queen, and normally additional swarms (afterswarms) are headed by virgin queens.
Swarm prevention has always been a challenge. There are many methods to control swarming, but three are most often followed: 1) Reversal of brood bodies 2) Providing a young queen 3) Demaree method
Reversal of Brood Bodies
During the winter the cluster gradually moves upward into the top hive body eating its way into stored honey above the cluster. Normally the colony is found in the upper deep hive body during the start of spring, leaving the bottom deep hive body empty of bees and honey. 
The colony will expand in the upper hive body but quickly becomes congested and will not likely move down. The congestion will likely cause the colony to
swarm. Therefore, reversing the hive bodies places the main nesting area on the bottom, giving the colony room to expand into the upper hive body thus elevating congestion and helping to prevent swarming. We'll talk more about this method in our next article as it is part of our SPRING acronym.
Providing a Young Queen
As the queen ages she is less likely to produce queen pheromones as strongly as a young queen. With the reduced queen pheromone the hive is more likely to swarm. Providing a new queen is part of our SPRING acronym so I will deal with this more in a future article. But for now, realize that a new queen each year can greatly reduce swarm tendency.
Demaree Method of Swarm Prevention
When I began studying for the master beekeeping certification, I learned about the Demaree method to prevent swarming. It frequently shows up on the
tests and I’m glad I studied it, because it showed up on last years test. George Demaree was a beekeeper from Kentucky who came up with an effective method of swarm control in 1892 which separates the queen from the brood. It requires more colony manipulation, but the method is effective.
For demonstration, our hive under consideration will have two deep hive bodies and let's assume the queen is laying well and there is capped and uncapped brood throughout the two deep hive bodies.

1) Examine the frames and cage the queen so that you do not injure her while moving frames.

2) Move frames of capped and uncapped brood into the upper deep hive body. If both deep hive bodies have brood that will not fit into the upper deep hive body, use a third deep hive body. Replace the brood frames that you moved up with empty drawn combs.

3) Place the queen (release her if she is in a cage) into the bottom deep hive body and place a queen excluder to hold her down into this bottom deep hive box.

4) Now, place drawn comb into a new deep hive body and place it on top of the bottom deep that has the queen excluder on it (in the middle of the two deeps).

5) In 7 to 10 days go through the upper hive body and destroy all queen cells. Since the queen is held down to the bottom of the hive, this upper box could start raising their own queen. But once you destroy any cells, they cannot raise another one because the brood is too old to raise a queen. Now you can remove the queen excluder. The bees have been given more room, the queen has been given more room and no bees have been lost due to swarming. And the bees will begin to fill the upper hive body once the brood has emerged.
...in our next article The Details of Reversing Hive Bodies

Thanks for joining us today! Here at Long Lane Honey Bee Farms we appreciate you business. Contact us to order all your woodenware (hive equipment), beekeeping equipment and supplies. We appreciate your support. 217-427-2678 or visit our website at: www.honeybeesonline.com
HERE’S OUR CONTACT INFORMATION:
PHONE: 217-427-2678
EMAIL: david@honeybeesonline.com
WEB: www.honeybeesonline.com
TWITTER: http://twitter.com/longlanehoney
See you next time,
David & Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
14556 N. 1020 E. Rd
Fairmount, IL 61841

Lesson 64: Why Is Honey So Good For Us?

Hello Friends! We are David & Sheri Burns operating our family honey bee business in Central Illinois where summer seems to be giving way to fall. We've had a few cool nights in the mid to upper 40s so it seems like fall.
NEWS FROM AROUND OUR FARM
Sheri's chickens are laying about 5 eggs a day, not quite enough to keep up with our family's need, but they are just now 20 weeks old. Every day we all race out to the chicken coop to gather up the eggs. I didn't realize until I read up on it that fresh eggs are much better for you than older eggs. Speaking about what's good for us...we all know that honey is good for us. And in today's lesson I want to give you some information explaining why honey is so good for us. Before I start today's lesson, let me continue to bring you up to date on what we've been doing.
I bought an old farm tractor,  a 1958 Case 800 with a front end loader. We are always plowing, digging and hauling things around, so this will be a big help for us. I bought it on Ebay and hauled it up out of southern Illinois last Saturday. It's two years older than me!
Two weekends ago we had a wonderful group at our beekeeping and queen rearing courses we offered at our honey bee farm. We had people here from Ohio, Missouri, Illinois and California. The students were very enthused about keeping bees and raising queens. The weather was great so we were able to spend some time in the hives as well.

Our honey crop was good and we were able to bottle up a good amount of beautiful tasting honey and our customers have lined up to buy it before we run out as they do every year. Our customer's appetite for honey is greater than our bee's ability to keep up with demand.
This will be our last month to produce queens. It becomes much more difficult to produce late queens but this is when so many people want to requeen, in September. Once again we gained so much knowledge and skill in our queen rearing operation. Can't wait until next year!! Where we really need to improve is in overall production of our queens. We have the quality where we want it, but now we must increase quantity. We had to turn away so many request.
on including the location and directions: http://www.easternmobeekeepers.com/meetings.htm
And for those of you who are Studio Bee Live addicts, we are producing more finally! These are broadcast that we produce here on our farm and place on the Internet. These broadcasts are located at: http://www.honeybeesonline.com/studiobeelive.html Check it out!
LESSON 64: Why Is Honey So Good For Us?
Nutritional Value
What's in honey? The actual chemical make up of honey can be slightly different based on the local nectar sources. Typically, honey consists of simple sugars known as glucose (dextrose) and fructose (levulose).
Bees do not gather honey from flowers. They gather nectar which is a sugary substance from plants which is very high in moisture. The bees carry the nectar to the hive and then hand it over to carriers in the hive. These carriers work the nectar droplet. Invertase is added by the bee who works the nectar to help evaporate the moisture from the nectar. This goes on for nearly several minutes and then the nectar is placed in the comb where it dries even more. Bees fan the open cells of nectar to cure it by evaporating the moisture level down to around 18%. Then it becomes honey and is sealed over with a wax cap.
Honey is made up of Moisture (17-18%), Fructose (around 40%) Glucose (around 30%) and other sugars, vitamins, minerals, and complex carbohydrates.
Honey is fat free, sodium free and cholesterol free! Honey does have vitamins like B6 and thiamin, niacin, and riboflavin. Honey contains minerals that are good for us like calcium, copper, iron magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc.
Antioxidants are also found in honey, such as chrysin, pinobanksin, vitamin C, catalase and one antioxidant that is only found in honey, pinocebrin.

This nutritional information was obtained from the National Honey Board's website.
Honey is the only unprocessed food that never spoils. Sometimes honey will become hard or solid. This natural process is known as granulation or crystallization. For the most part all honey will eventually crystallize over time, but some takes much longer than others. The deciding factor is the type of nectar or floral source from which the nectar was gathered which determines the sugar content.
What causes honey to crystallize or granulate? Since honey is composed of glucose and fructose, this high concentration of the sugar begins to separate out and can then form crystals. Remember that honey is 70% sugar and 20% or less of water. Any small particle such as pollen specs, or even air bubbles will provide a seed for these sugar crystals to begin to grow. We count on this process in making our cream honey. We just grind the seed crystals to be extremely small so it makes the honey feel creamy.
Granulated honey is not spoiled. It can be warmed and most of the crystals can be re-liquefied. Remember, all honey will eventually granulate unless it has been heated to 140-160 degrees and highly filtered to remove all particles. Of course, heating honey damages it by removing or killing valuable enzymes.
Something that often does follow granulation is fermentation because water is forced out of the sugar in the granulation process. This extra water causes the honey to ferment. Natural yeast within the honey will begin the process of turning your honey into mead or alcohol when the moisture level is above 18%.
Honey absorbs water? It will absorb it from the room you process it in. That's why I keep my processing room around 30-35% humidity and dry my supers 3 days before I process the honey. I've never had a fermentation issue.
What is the shelf life of honey? A long time! Do not put it in the refrigerator. It is fine left at room temperature.
Many people including myself use honey on skin injuries. I recently spoke with a hand surgeon and he explained to me that honey can keep a wound very moist to aid in healing yet kill bacteria. Honey kills bacteria because it is hygroscopic. This means that honey absorbs moisture from bacteria that tries to grow.  This is why honey is such a safe food to eat no matter how long it has sat out, maybe centuries!
Thanks for joining me today, and I really enjoy preparing these lessons each week.
I want to remind you that we manufacture our own hives, built to our own specifications because we are beekeepers. Please check out our website at: http://www.honeybeesonline.com for all the honey bee products we carry including hives!
I always welcome you comments or suggestions on future lessons and I also appreciate it when you pass these lessons on to others.  You can encourage your friends to sign up to receive these directly via Email.
We now have 911 subscribers receiving these lessons directly to their email. In fact, there is a link at the bottom of this post (sent via Email) and I'll include a link here:
http://www.feedblitz.com/f?Sub&publisher=5477260
It's fast and easy to sign up and FREE. Plus you can bail out any time.
Here's our contact information:
PHONE: 217-427-2678
EMAIL: david@honeybeesonline.com
WEB: www.honeybeesonline.com
Until next time Bee-have yourself!

David & Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
14556 N. 1020 East Road
Fairmount, IL 61841

Lesson 27: Help Save The Honey Bee

I am working on a lesson, probably the one after this one, where I will address varroa mites and some natural ways to keep mites under control. But prior to that lesson, I want to put out one more clarion cry for people to help save the bees!
The decline of the honey bee population is alarming. CCD hysteria aside, the decline of honey bees in the US is disturbing. Not only because of the recent concern of Colony Collapse Disorder, but because less and less people are keeping bees. Even before the concern of CCD I was already frightened at the reduction in bee colonies simply due to urbanization and the decline in beekeepers. An absence of honey bees has sent farmers running to the phones begging beekeepers to bring some honey bees to pollinate their crops. I received two such calls last week.
Without the honey bee we face a severe food crises. One third of every bite of food we enjoy is the result of a honey bee. You see, honey bees pollinate. And without adequate pollination, our food supply is in serious trouble unless you want to live on a diet of beans, corn and rice.
Without the honey bee America would have to pay 93 billion dollars A YEAR to do what the honey bee does, if that was even possible. And in reality, no efforts can replace the honey bee. We receive many calls from orchards and melon farmers begging us to bring bees to help them produce a crop. The need for honey bees is tremendous. At times, and in some places, the beekeeper can name any price to rent their hives and the grower will pay it. One grower in Maine pays over $900,000.00 for bees for his blueberries!
In my opinion, the only way we can protect the honey bee from becoming extinct or declining even further is to encourage more and more people to start keeping bees.
One October 28th, 2007, PBS aired a NATURE broadcast entitled, Silence Of The Bee. Several things are worth noting about that broadcast. May Berenbaum, PhD, Entomologist, Univ. of Illinois at U.C. said, "Estimates are that about 600,000 of America's 2.6 million honey bee colonies may have just disappeared". Another interesting observation was that during the broadcast a line came across the screen that encouraged people to go to the PBS website to find out what they could do to help save the honey bee. After the broadcast I followed that link and it basically said that to help save the honey bee more people should become beekeepers. We totally agree! This is our passion.
I am often asked exactly, "What is needed to start my first hive?" My wife might answer you differently than I would. I would encourage you to buy everything at once, all the things you'll need throughout the full year of beekeeping. My wife certainly agrees with me on this, but if she were starting out she would probably buy just enough to get started, and then add to it as the hobby expands. That's because my wife is very frugal with money, spending as little as necessary. I'm a guy. I like to buy big things and everything at once. Why not, I'm going to need it anyway!
To help more people keep bees, our family owned business has developed into 4 areas:
1) Manufacturing of the woodenware, the actual hives.
2) Educating the general public, FREE, on how to keep bees. Of course we educate by offering free mentoring to everyone who purchases a hive from us too.
3) Selling package bees, nucs and queens.
4) And selling honey and other products our hives produce.
People often call and ask what they need to get started. So, we have put together the perfect kit, containing just what you need to start your efforts in helping to save the honey bee.
This complete startup kit is on our website http://www.honeybeesonline.com/ under startup kits, and it's called the "Starter Kit" and it costs $249 plus shipping. If you add in the cost of a 3 lb package of bees with an Italian queen which includes shipping of the bees, the price is $345 plus the cost of shipping the hives. Even this is still a small price to pay to start keeping a hive. Don't forget that I strongly suggest, however, that you start with two hives! This is very important, though not essential if finances are tight. For more information on why you should start with two hives, click on this link to lesson Eighteen, "How Many Hives Should I Start With"?

This will probably be my last opportunity to hit the subject of declining bees so hard within these bee lessons. From here on out, the beekeeping season jumps into full speed and gains speed all the way through November so the lessons will be more hands on, dealing with day to day beekeeping preparation and operations of your hives. So may I challenge you to consider beekeeping! And if you already are keeping bees, then please do your part to encourage others to get on board and start keeping more hives. Bees die, and when they do, don't despair. Replace your dieouts and keep going!
We are here to help you enjoy the wonderful honey bee and the natural products we gather from the hive.

Also, we'd like to post some of the positive comments that you might be willing to share about these beekeeping lessons. So, if you have a positive comment to share about how these lessons have helped you, please send them to: david@honeybeesonline.com and we'll sprinkle them throughout our upcoming lessons. Please include your state and first name.
I can't wait to share my thoughts in our next lesson about varroa mites. I've got a few radical ideas to share, and I think after hearing some of my ideas, you'll agree!
We are still selling 3 lb packaged bees! And we sell at $96, for pick up at our facility only.

Remember, BEE-Have Yourself!

David & Sheri Burns